He Chased This 1971 Demon Through Three States. Now It Has 1,492 Wheel Horsepower of Turbo LSX

There is a certain kind of car you do not so much buy as hunt. For Alex Hays, it was a bright orange 1971 Dodge Demon, and the hunt took him through three states, two missed chances and one very painful sale of a 2018 Camaro ZL1 1LE. It ended in Indianapolis around Thanksgiving, with Hays driving north from South Carolina and his father, Pat, driving south from Detroit with an open trailer. "Finally, after chasing this car since 2023, I had it home in my shop," Hays told LSX Magazine. "I was ecstatic, to say the least."

What he did next is the part that will start arguments. The Demon, an all-Mopar A-body, now runs a turbocharged LSX making 1,492 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Why a Demon

The car mattered to Hays for reasons that go back to a one-car garage in Garden City, Michigan. His father owned a 1972 Demon with a Koffel's Place-built 440, B1 cylinder heads and nitrous, LSX Magazine's Josh Leatherwood reported. It ran mid-nine-second passes in the early 1990s and still saw plenty of street use.

"I always had a spot for A-bodies in my heart," Hays told the magazine. "I recall many nights watching my dad work on his Demon in the one-car garage where we lived at the time." He remembered riding along Telegraph Road to Detroit Dragway and watching his dad's Demon stand on its rear bumper before a broken driveshaft ended the run at the 60-foot mark. That car eventually disappeared, and Hays has never been able to find it.

The chase

Hays first saw this '71 for sale in Maryland in 2023. It had been built over several years by AJ Trott and his grandfather, and with a baby on the way, Trott was selling. Hays could not swing it at the time.

Then the car turned up in Virginia, where a new owner had raced it a few times. Hays confirmed it was the same Demon and tried to trade for it. No deal. So he sold his Camaro ZL1 1LE to raise cash, a decision his wife, Stephanie, apparently still brings up, according to LSX Magazine. By the time the Camaro sale closed in late October, the Demon was gone again, traded with another car to an Indiana dealer for a Chevy II.

Hays gave up and started looking for a different old car to build for drag-and-drive events. Then his dad spotted the Demon on Facebook Marketplace in Indianapolis. Hays offered what the previous owner had been asking. A few days later the seller called back: "Come get it!"

The LS in the room

Finished in Audi Glut Orange with satin-black accents, the Demon looks every bit the early-1970s Mopar. Open the hood and there is no 340, no 440 and no Hemi. There is a 388-cubic-inch short-deck LSX, assembled by Jonathan "Grubb Worm" Atkins at JA Competition Engines with a Manley billet crankshaft, Oliver rods, Wiseco pistons and PRC cylinder heads. A Forced Inductions 88mm S400 turbo feeds it.

Behind the engine is a Coan Turbo 400 with a lockup converter, sending power to a Performance Fab 9-inch rear. Devin Vanderhoof at HCR Innovations did the wiring around a Holley Dominator ECU, and Peter Harrell at HED handles the tuning. Leatherwood's take was blunt: at nearly 1,500 horsepower to the tires, "anyone complaining about an LS engine being in a MoPar seems a little silly."

Built to survive it

Making that kind of power is easy compared with living with it. The Demon already had an 8.50-certified roll cage by Jason Brazzel at BPF when Hays bought it, and Matt Smith at Performance Fab continues to refine the chassis. Up front, an RMS AlterKtion K-member and double A-arm suspension work with Santhuff double-adjustable shocks. Out back is a Performance Fab triangulated four-link, also on Santhuffs. Strange four-piston steel brakes sit at each corner.

Polished and chrome Keizer wheels finish the look: 17s up front, with massive 15-by-13-inch double-beadlocks out back. Hays is a Keizer Racing Wheels dealer, so the Demon doubles as a rolling showcase. Hoosier front runners and 275 drag radials put it all down.

A race car you can drive

Hays already owns a much more serious race car, a 1992 Fox-body Mustang built for radial-tire racing. The problem, he explained to LSX Magazine, is that running it takes a crew and a plan, so it sits more than he would like. The Demon was meant to be the opposite: an old car he can drive, race locally and take on drag-and-drive events without organizing a pit crew.

By his account, it works. "It's a true driver, doesn't overheat, doesn't burn oil, and rides relatively well," Hays said. People stop him at gas stations to ask about it, which is part of the deal when your daily fun car is a bright orange Demon.

Not done yet

The car has not shown its full hand. On its first real hit, it ran a 5.22-second eighth-mile even though the pass was aborted. On the next try, the anti-roll bar broke. "The car should go deep in the fours once I can keep the front end down and put some power to it," Hays told the magazine. The plan is local Thursday-night list racing near his South Carolina home and the Southeast Street-N-Yeet drag-and-drive in October.

The bigger picture

LS-swapped Mopars will always draw comments, and Hays clearly expects them. But this build makes the case for the swap better than most. It is not an LS in a Demon to save money or make a point. It is an LS because a 388-inch turbo LSX with a billet crank and a big S400 is one of the most proven ways to make reliable four-digit power in a car that still has to start, idle, cool itself and drive home.

And at its heart, the story is not really about the engine. It is about a kid who watched his dad's Demon pull the front wheels at Detroit Dragway, and grew up to chase down one of his own, with his dad's help, from three states away.